Friday, November 07, 2014

It was the first snow day of the year on Monday, (November 3rd, by the way, the earliest in my recollection but who's counting) and we did all the typical snow-man-day things, but one of the unexpected benefits was that we lost power and the Internet for the day. Usually that's an imposition of course, but we had a generator and nowhere to be so we came up with our own entertainment.

I remember one of my favorite past-times as a child was building card houses. We had drawers full of partial decks that were never thrown out and I would transform them into impossible towers and forts. I hadn't thought about them until (after a cut throat family tournament of UNO) my son and I started new construction!

I would build, build, build and watch half a tower fall down just to build, build, build again. What I realized is that learning how the tower falls became an integral aspect of the final product itself. And most importantly, I learned a kind of patience in this iteration process. Deliberate patience is something our kids don't experience much these days. (A friend of mine said, "Try watching your T-Ball player wait for a hit in deep right and you'll appreciate patience." ) Developing a practiced patience that comes from stacking cards I was encouraged how long my boys were willing to stick with it.

(My personal record as a child was nine tiers high and something I'm still proud of.)

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Friday, the Tech Sherpas participated in the Student Summit with the Ottawa Catholic School Board. We had a couple hundred students from various schools where high school students were teaching sessions on Google tools to younger grades. What a fantastic model for learning!

The kids were excited to be there and of course, the Sherpas were happy to help out. These students asked questions, dove into the tools and kept us busy!

Next up was the largest Google in Education Summit to date! Ottawa, where the Tech Sherpas presented, helped out and rocked the demo slam!

All said, we want to thank the OCSB for inviting us to the Student Summit and EdTechTeam for inviting us to participate in an amazing opportunity!

My favorite part of the trip, however, came before we even got started. I said to Kaiden, "We're headed to California, is there anything you'd like to see while we're there?" I assumed he want to see the huge sequoia trees (we did) but he thought for a second and said, "Caine's Arcade." Now, if you don't know about Caine's Arcade watch this video . . .

. . . and you understand why I was so excited that of all places, he wanted to go there. Two things came to mind, first how did he even know about Caine's Arcade, and second was it still even around?He told me he learned about it from his teacher last year (kudos to Mrs. Maxium) and then we researched to see how to get there. We used all the typical online tools you'd guess, Google Maps, Search and Facebook and found directions.

We got to meet Caine's dad (and get a Fun Pass of course) and I realized that his rockstars - are not the rockstars I had at 9 years old, but other kids his age making things he can relate to and sharing them online. Enter Minecraft video walkthroughs. The reason why a kid from Maine would even know to trek to east L.A. and search him down was the video, so as the school year begins, imagine ways to promote the work you do and connect your students with those around the world.

Events like this are such huge experiences for my students, (who had never flown before) and it's not just presenting. I've always felt that public speaking is like juggling. You can't read a book or watch a video on how to do it well, you have to actually DO it! Again and again and again, making mistakes perhaps, but getting a little better each time. And the way for our students to get better at it is for as authentic a setting you can get for them.

One of the analogies I like to share about the benefit of bringing kids at conferences comes from Douglas Edwards' book, I'm Feeling Lucky. Edwards was Google's 59th employee and in the book he talks about his interview with one of Google's founders, Sergey Brin. Near the end of the interview, Sergey informed Edwards, "I'm going to give you five minutes, when I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know." Brin explained later that he asks because if an interview otherwise goes poorly the time wasn't a total loss since he'd learned something new. I feel the same about having students present. In addition to whatever the attendees get from a presentation, the time is doubly valuable as a learning experience for the students.

None of this trip would have be possible without the amazing support of Tech Smith and a HUGE thank you to Monica Martinez from TCEA for inviting us!

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Everyone knows that YouTube has become the de facto video player for the Internet and like the Internet there's great educational stuff there (and ridiculous stuff as well.)I've been using Google Hangouts On Air with my Tech Sherpa students to provide tech support for over a year now and one of the best features is how a Hangout On Air is automatically recorded and added to your YouTube Channel. My students help educators with tech support questions and have a recording to share later with others. Perfect.Until now.I attempted to start a new Hangout on Air and was greet with this message:

About Me

Starting my career as an elementary teacher at the Parawai School in New Zealand, I am currently the Educational Technologist at Regional School Unit #19 in central Maine. I have provided support to educators for over a decade and conducted professional development across the world. I have always loved working with students with a special focus on having them teach others. I work with student presenters in a weekly live tech support show broadcast at www.techsherpas.org. ACTEM’s 2013 Educator of the year, I have brought students to numerous conferences such as Maine's ACTEM conference, Alan November's Building Learning Communities and the Google Teacher Academy.